The George Washington Bridge lane closure scheme wrecked the lives of Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni. And although not nearly as disastrous, several former allies of Gov. Chris Christie, as well as the governor himself, suffered personal and professional setbacks in the wake of the scandal.

Other former allies, however, did not just survive — they thrived.

Two former aides landed at the White House, including Christie’s longtime political adviser, Bill Stepien, whose presence loomed over last year’s blockbuster trial. Stepien is now President Donald Trump’s political director.

Lesser actors in the bridge drama, such as former Christie aide Deborah Gramiccioni and Republican State Sen. Kevin O’Toole, have advanced too. On Monday, Gramiccioni was sworn in as a state Superior Court judge. The previous week, O’Toole was cleared by the New Jersey Senate to join the board of the Port Authority.

Kelly and Baroni were convicted in November — and scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday — of closing access lanes to the bridge to punish the mayor of Fort Lee for refusing to endorse Christie’s 2013 re-election bid.

Kelly, the governor’s former deputy chief of staff, and Baroni, his former top executive appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, face the possibility of several years in prison.

No sentencing date has been set for their co-conspirator, David Wildstein, a Port Authority official who pleaded guilty and was the star government witness at the trial.

David Wildstein exits the federal courthouse in Newark after pleading guilty to two counts of conspiracy in May 2015.(Photo: Marko Georgiev/northjersey.com)

During six weeks of testimony, Wildstein and other witnesses painted a portrait of a pugnacious administration focused on re-electing the governor while keeping an eye on Christie’s 2016 presidential aspirations.

The bully-boy atmosphere was typified by emails revealed during the trial from Christie’s press secretary Michael Drewniak, who wrote to Wildstein that he would like to beat a New Jersey reporter with a lead pipe to put others “on notice.” (Drewniak’s loyalty was rewarded with a $147,000 job in a specially created position at the performance- and budget-challenged NJ Transit.)

Michael Drewniak is shown during a press conference in Trenton on Jan. 9, 2014.(Photo: Chris Pedota/NorthJersey.com)

The trial showed how Christie’s aides and allies used the Port Authority as a “goody bag” to court votes for the governor’s re-election. When slighted, they retaliated by shutting down communication with local towns.

Such behavior was personified by Stepien, Christie’s 2013 campaign manager, who in an email to Wildstein remarked that it was “good to be an incumbent with stuff to offer” and who ordered that administration officials cut off all contact with the Democratic mayor of Jersey City after he refused to endorse the governor.

Prior to running Christie’s campaign, Stepien was Kelly’s boss and mentor in the governor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs. After he left the office, Stepien kept in close contact with Kelly and Wildstein.

Bill Stepien, left, former campaign manager for Governor Chris Christie and his attorney Kevin Marino, leave the State House on Monday, June 9, 2014.(Photo: Any Newman/Staff photographer)

Wildstein testified that when he told Stepien about the lane closure scheme one month before it was set in motion, Stepien’s response was to ask what their cover story would be.

Though Stepien was never charged in the conspiracy, his attorney Kevin Marino attended long stretches of the trial, conferring regularly with defense attorneys.

Stepien’s career derailed in 2014 when Christie severed ties with him after an email from Kelly to Wildstein — “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee” — was published on NorthJersey.com and in The Record, turning the bridge lane closures into a national scandal. Stepien’s rapid resurrection began last year when Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, brought him into the presidential campaign.

Another former Christie aide, Matt Mowers, also benefited from Trump’s victorious campaign.

When he took the stand in federal court in Newark last fall, Mowers was a Trump campaign national field coordinator.

Mowers testified that during his Christie Administration days, he and colleagues in the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs maintained a spreadsheet tracking favors done for Democratic officials and their towns to secure support in the 2013 election and to burnish Christie’s bi-partisan reputation.

The document, titled “Dem elected target hit list,” listed incentives such as small Port Authority grants, seats in the governor’s box at sporting events and donations of mangled steel from Ground Zero.

Today, Mowers is a senior adviser to the president at the State Department.

O’Toole played a bit part in the aftermath of the lane closures.

During a combative performance in front of an Assembly transportation committee, Baroni stuck to a cover story that the lane reductions were conducted as part of a traffic study.

Former state Sen. Kevin O'Toole called his elevation to Port Authority chairman "a proud day for me."(Photo: Danielle Parhizkaran/northjersey.com file photo)

Wildstein testified that he asked O’Toole to release a statement to the press supporting Baroni’s version because he knew it would make the story more believable. O’Toole, a staunch Christie ally, obliged.

After Baroni was forced to resign, Gramiccioni took over as deputy executive director of the Port Authority. As a former head of Christie’s authorities unit, which oversees agencies and commissions, and a former federal prosecutor, she was well qualified to have suspicions about Baroni’s behavior.

Deb Gramiccioni, a former deputy executive director of the Port Authority walks to the Federal Courthouse on Oct. 11, 2016.(Photo: Chris Pedota/NorthJersey.com)

During her confirmation hearing last year to become a Superior Court Judge in Ocean County, a position that pays $165,000, skeptical senators wanted to know why Gramiccioni showed no curiosity about probing her predecessor’s actions. They registered their displeasure and their distrust confirming her in a 9-4 vote.

On Monday, at a swearing in ceremony in a Toms River courtroom, Christie gushed that Gramiccioni had performed all of her government roles “with extraordinary skill, but overwhelmingly with her heart.”

Although Christie was never charged — and has worked hard to absolve himself of blame, even commissioning a taxpayer funded multi-million dollar investigation into the lane closures — the bridge scandal has dogged him.

It fatally damaged his presidential run and it may well be a key factor in his failure to advance in the Trump universe. Christie’s prosecution of Kushner’s father a decade ago, when Christie was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, is likely a key factor too.

The bridge scandal also likely impeded Christie’s former chief of staff, Kevin O’Dowd, who was on the fast-track to becoming Attorney General after Christie nominated him in December 2013.

Kevin O'Dowd, Governor Christie's chief of staff, left, with his attorney Paul Zouek, testifies before the New Jersey Select Commission on Investigation on Monday, June 9, 2014.(Photo: Amy Newman/NorthJersey.com)

But the publication of emails and texts implicating Kelly and Wildstein’s role in the lane closing in early 2014, threw a wrench into those plans. Facing the likelihood of O’Dowd’s confirmation hearing turning into a high-profile interrogation of the entire scandal, Christie withdrew the nomination.

Several months later, legislators hammered away at O’Dowd’s “lack of curiosity” during a day-long hearing before the legislative panel probing the issue. Christie never renominated him for the Attorney General’s post, and by November 2014, O’Dowd resigned to become senior executive vice president and chief administrative officer at Cooper University Health Care, the crown jewel of South Jersey political leader George Norcross’ political empire in Camden.

Former New Jersey Attorney General David Samson was less fortunate.

David Samson(Photo: Seth Wenig/AP)

An investigation that grew out of the bridge lane closure probe and was first reported by The Record and NorthJersey.com, revealed that Samson abused his power as chairman of the Port Authority to bribe an airline into setting up a non-stop route to an airport close to his vacation home in South Carolina.